Book review: Inspector Banks mystery has a counterculture twist

Sunday

“Children Of The Revolution: An Inspector Banks Novel,” by Peter Robinson. William Morrow. 336 pages. $25.99....

“Children Of The Revolution: An Inspector Banks Novel,” by Peter Robinson. William Morrow. 336 pages. $25.99.

Anyone who knows Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks will immediately think of Yorkshire — this time it’s in a rain-drenched November — the bureaucratic jealousies among his cop cohorts, and Peter Robinson’s meticulously detailed, step-by-step police procedurals that jump forward, wind backward, circle characters who need to be interviewed yet again, and slowly reveal the dark heart of the matter that always makes the often lengthy procedures worth it.

This time the emaciated body of Gavin Miller is found near a disused railway track, having been tossed off a bridge. Who was he? He lived a reclusive life in a cottage beyond the town. As he comes into focus, we learn that he was a child of the ’60s in terms of music, drugs, existential ponderings and poetic musings. He’s also shy, socially inept, and despite his past seemingly colorless, always desperate for money.

He used to teach at the nearby university until two female students accused him of sexual harassment, which led to his curt dismissal. Of course there’s more here than meets the eye, possibly involving drugs, secret liaisons, betrayal and conspiracy. Miller obviously is wrecked by his circumstances, and for all the talk of the help offered by his academic superiors, they do nothing to help him.

Then there’s Lady Veronica Chalmers. Did she know Miller as a student back at the University of Essex? She did get a seven-minute phone call shortly before his death and refuses to tell Inspector Banks about it. He necessarily becomes suspicious, but what would the wealthy wife of a wealthy theatrical producer have to do with the likes of Miller, if anything?

England was wracked by miners’ strikes in the early 1970s that almost brought down the government and led to Margaret Thatcher’s savage backlash. Is this where the revolution failed?